06/20/2007

Sicko

The silliness of Moore’s oeuvre is so self-evident that being able to spot it is not liberal or conservative either; it’s a basic intelligence test, like the ability to match square peg with square hole. ... Even Moore does not believe what he says, and his films don’t bring about change-—union membership did not skyrocket nor corporate downsizing trickle off after "Roger and Me," there was no movement towards banning guns after "Bowling for Columbine," and John Kerry did not have to fill out any change of address forms in 2004. Moore's documentaries are mere political slapstick that could have been made by a third Farrelly brother or an eighth Stooge. I will pay him the honor of treating him with his own meds. How else can I deal with a film that calls Hillary Clinton "sexy"?

Then he proceeds to demolish Moore's latest effort:

Moore glosses over wait times, hoping his audience is too stupid to notice. He asks a handful of Canadian patients how long they had to wait to see the doctor. Oh, 20 minutes, 45 minutes, everyone says. So if Moore finds five people who didn’t have to wait, there’s no waiting for anybody! “To any Canadian who has ever been forced to go to emergency, this would seem unbelievable,” writes Thomas Malkom, a vehemently pro-Moore columnist for Canada’s paper The Star. The Canadian Supreme Court struck down a law forbidding private insurance in a 2005 decision, ruling that "Access to a waiting list is not access to health care" The decision resulted from a Canadian case in which a man waited a year for hip-replacement surgery, and Canada has started down the road of privatization. Check out the Canadian movie "The Barbarian Invasions" (which is, like "Sicko," a fiction film) for a view of how Canadians view their system: agonizing waits; trips across the border to Vermont to get access to modern technology; fetid facilities modeled, seemingly, on an American one—the Confederate field hospital in "Gone with the Wind."

Comments

Remove it from the loud sound described as among the People of the individual during sleep, especially in the medical sense, the most common cause of snoring soft palate observed in adults, little more than normal growth of the tongue, the muscles sag and tension and blockage of the airway during sleep, losing little of the language titresmesidi

what a load of crap, as a Canadian
I understand there are some drawbacks - but at least we all have access and don't have to cash in our life savings to get treatment -

My father who had a heart valve replaced,
and later had a defibrillator put in & had to go on dialysis.. how much did it cost? nothing - other than the $40 /mth he had been paying. We don't get the bill.

And we don't have insurance denying coverage because we didn't declare we had 'acne' a pre-existing conditions.
Or for that matter hospitals dumping patients who can't pay the bill on the street..

And Canadians life expectancy is on average 3 years more than Americans..
the US spends the most by far for medical care but doesnt get much for it.
(judging by average life expectancy and health)

as far as Canadians heading south - sure if they got the money - but how many busloads of US seniors come to Canada to buy the cheaper drugs..

The US system primarily enriches the insurance industry and pharmaceuticals.